William George Maxwell

Infobox President
name =Sir William George Maxwell
honorific-suffix =
KBE CMG


caption =
order =British Adviser for Kedah
term_start =1909
term_end =1915
deputy =
predecessor =none, post created
successor =Littleton Edward Pipe-Wolferstan
order2 =British Adviser for Kedah
term_start2 =1918
term_end2 =1919
deputy2 =
predecessor2 =G.A. Hall
successor2 =Malcolm Stewart Hannibal McArthur
order3 =British Resident of Perak
term_start3 =1919
term_end3 =1921
deputy3 =
predecessor3 =Sir Reginald George Watson
successor3 =Sir William James Parke Hume
birth_date =1871
birth_place =Singapore
death_date = 1959
death_place =
spouse = Lady Evelyn Maxwell
religion =Christian
constituency =
party =
languagesspoken =

Sir William George Maxwell KBE, CMG was born in 1871 in Singapore and died in 1959. He was the eldest son of William Edward Maxwell and Lilias Grant Mackay. Sir George was a British naturalist and colonial admistator in British Malaya and Straits Settlements. His father W.E. Maxwell was a famous colonial officer in British Malaya, who holded the post as British High Commissioners in Malaya and Governor of Straits Settlements.

Career

Sir George entered the service of the Perak Government as a junior officer in 1891. Since that time he has been Assistant District Magistrate and Registrar of Courts in Kinta Valley (Perak). He was also the Assistant Secretary to the Government of Perak, Acting Collector of Land Revenue in Larut, Registrar of Titles and Warden of Mines in Northern Perak and Acting Senior Magistrate for Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, and Perak. In 1904, he was transferred to the Civil Service of Straits Settlements and has been Acting Commissioner of the Court of Requests in Singapore.

Sir William also posted as the District Officer of Dinding, Perak, Solicitor General (1906). On 9 July 1909, the Bangkok Agreement, which was ratified by the British and Siamese, effectively delivered Kedah to the British and Sir George was appointted as British Adviser of Kedah (1909 - 1915) and (1918 - 1919). He was also the British Resident of Perak (1919 - 1921) and Chief Secretary of Federated Malay States (1921 - 1926).

Contributions and Honours

On 29 November 1929, he opened the Sultan Idris Training College in Perak and making it the highest institution of learning exclusively for the Malays at that time. He was knighted with KBE in 1924 and carried the title "Sir". In order to remember his contributions in Perak, Maxwell Hill in Taiping was named after him.

Sources and references

* [http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Malay_states.htm WorldStatesmen - Malaysia]
* [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jandjroots/Mackay/d0007/g0000027.html#I6326 Maxwell family tree]